Mental Health: A knot on your thoughts
It’s a term that has a huge impact on your life or I can say your life depends on it. When this topic arrives in front of anyone, we often jump to the solutions without knowing the problem.
Identifying the root cause of your problem is what we need. But, in such a state of mind. Clarity becomes obsolete and untouched. What we see is complexity with life, thoughts, relationship, or beliefs, etc.
Feeling low or depressed is a signal similar to when you are feeling physically sick, your immune system tries to fight against the disease and tries to recover. That’s why you feel uneasy during that time till you get recovered. The same pattern applies to your mental health. Losing the clarity of your thoughts with the emotionally low state is also an emblem for the fight between happiness vs feeling broken. This battle creates an illusion of disturbance within the thought spaces & weakens our power to see the clarity within ourselves.
This might be your current mental state like a rope knot. Layered over each other with multiple problems.
In order to resolve this knot, you will just need to find a loose end. If you try to unknot it too fast, it will get tighter and you won’t be able to untie it easily. Similarly, if you are trying too hard like thinking too much, reading about your depression, pills, attempts to make you feel good for instance, etc. You won’t be able to fix your mental knots. They will get tighter and harder to free them up.
How do we unravel our strangled thoughts knot?
When we look out for a solution: we will get endless suggestions like self-care, meditation, mindfulness, talk about your problem, consulting physiatrist, watch motivational videos, listen to music, yoga/exercise, making a list of things you would like to do, etc. Basically what works for them or some things which are generally designed to help everyone. All of them are good.
Unknowingly pulling the ropes here and there: might disentangle it? or make it more complicated? likewise trying out one of the above solutions. Well sometimes it does and sometimes it won’t. Then, how do we solve it? What if we try to go a bit slow towards the problem and observe. When we look closely towards the knot, we can see some loose ends.
Let loose you and slowness amuse you for a while!
Loose ends are the root source towards reaching your problems and way toward a wave of peace. You can only see those loose ends while you go at a slow pace. What people suggest you are the tools to let you loose. Basically distract yourself for a while as in Italian, I can say:
Dolce Far Niente (Sweetly doing nothing!)
Try out new things, a new route on the landscape of your thoughts. Doing nothing could be: travel to someplace in nature and watch the surroundings or pick up anything creative areas. You are trying to distract yourself. Otherwise, within the same environment, your thought process will keep feeding you with negative emotions and gets your knot tighter. Once you have tried out something new.
Now, you can opt for any of the suggested methods let’s say Meditation. Initial attempts will be difficult to keep yourself consistent. Even if you were able to get regular on it. It will help you to be better but trying to overdo it and thinking that it will solve your problem immediately. It won’t happen like even if you find that loose end, it will take some time to unknot the rope of your thoughts.
How long it will take?
Let’s say you have started doing one of the suggested methods. You will start feeling better with days, Now, you can see your knot is getting thinner, some layers are off. Still, after a while, you might see that your mental rope is having some minor knots at multiple places. You will feel stuck again. Even after opting for some suggestions, you will encounter that some triggers point. When those triggers point or situation happens. Again we began to feel depressed. It gives us a sense of not getting out of it, even after trying out several things for years.
Identify find those trigger points!
When we encounter a certain situation or something happens, our reaction to those situations pulls us back into multiple small knots which strangles your thought process. When we are in the middle of getting recovered vs stuck.
What are those trigger points can be:
- Insecurities
- Loneliness
- Relationships
- Physical challenges
- Many more...
Try to make a list of your trigger points or situations that trigger those points with sips of your favorite coffee or tea.
Once you have those points listed, try to think about the possible solutions and what you can do, if those solutions didn’t go as per your plan. Now you know your situation with multiple small knots on your rope.
Try to act!
Once you have started, don’t stop! You will be able to recover from your challenges. At any point in time, when it feels like to give up. Follow the steps again from the start. You will be able to free up your knotted thoughts.
In conclusion, we can iterate over the key points
- Loose ends/ Dolce Far Niente (Sweetly doing nothing!): Distract your mind with some kind of a new experience.
- Opt for multiple mental tools: Meditation, Yoga, Exercise, Dance, Music, Art, Dance, Travel, Gardening, etc.
- Identify your trigger points
- Action to solve them which seems easier.
Be Happy! find your peace within yourself!
Thank you for reading. I hope you have found this helpful and you have learned to unknot a rope! if still, you can’t find the peace within yourself, Reach out for help with professionals.
